BS of America

The Boy Scouts of America made the final decision this week to replace the "Scouting Heritage" merit badge with the new "Compromising principles and values" badge. The Girl Scouts now allow boys to join, and the President of the Boy Scouts has called for a removal of the ban on openly gay scoutmasters. Both organizations are well on their way to merging into the "Bitsy" Scouts of America at some point down the road. For those that don't know, "bitsy" is used in some circles as a gender neutral term for young humans. It's a much clearer and less presumptive term now that we no longer know what a boy or a girl is. Seems silly doesn't it? We used to laugh at ridiculous ideas like applying gender neutral pronouns to humans, and the full force of government destroying the lives of little old church ladies for not baking cakes. It seemed funny then.

The first clue that the "Boy" Scouts of America had slipped irretrievably into irrelevancy came earlier in the week in discussions over the strict prohibition against water gun fights among the membership. A Mr. Wendell helpfully clarified the situation on the "B"SofA website by stating, "A Scout is kind. What part of pointing a firearm at someone is kind?” Toy, Weapon? Water, Fire? Boy, Girl? it's all so confusing in the post modern Bitsy Scouts. Oh, and water balloons, they can't be filled bigger than a ping-pong ball, and naturally they have to be bio-degradable as well, and they must only be thrown at targets. Oh yeah, rubber bands. Those are for targets too. You could put your eye out Ralphie.

So basically the dull, boring, boyhood hating stiffs have taken over the Boy Scouts. It's been a while since I was in scouts, and I was never really into it all that much, but I don't remember it being anti-boy. Of course when the scout masters weren't around it was more like fight club. Somehow we survived. We did target practice. Of course we used BB guns, or actual guns, or knives, or hatchets, or some other deadly implement for that. Water guns for target practice? Keep that in the pansy scouts. Boy Scouts was about developing character in young men, not about emasculating boys.

The men that ran scouts took the values described in the scout oath and law pretty seriously. Values like bravery, and reverence. The cowardice demonstrated by today's leadership would not have been considered a scout virtue in times past - but not really all that far in the past. The very first promise in the scout oath is a promise that "on my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God". Leadership without example is meaningless. In fact it isn't leadership at all, it's just organizational hierarchy. Any fool can be a boss. Words like "honor", and "duty" are only meaningful in their demonstration. If the BSofA has a sense of duty, it isn't to the boys that participate in their program. It isn't to the churches that support scouting as an effort to mold boys into men that exemplify the virtues of the oath and law. And it certainly isn't to God.